The Wall Street Journal reported that Comcast is set to test an IPTV offering on a limited basis on the campus of MIT this fall. The WSJ report suggests that Comcast’s intent is to develop more advanced IP-based features to go with its TV services, and get itself in a better position to battle the competition. (more…)
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Archive for the ‘IPTV’ Category
Comcast reportedly inching toward IPTV trial
SureWest CTO, IPTV pioneer DeMuth departs
Bill DeMuth, who led SureWest’s aggressive fiber-to-the-home and IPTV deployment strategies, is leaving the company at the end of this month. In addition to his work with SureWest, DeMuth has been an outspoken and popular figure on the event front, as well a member of the USTA’s engineering committee and a member of the board of directors at technical/standards group ATIS.
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YAOTVG, or ‘Yet Another Online TV Guide,’ launches
The world has TV programming guides that run on TVs, not to mention a new swell of guides that somehow combine the two. But does the Web need its own real-time programming guide? Count Live Matrix as yet another entrant (SetJam, Clicker enter hypercompetitive online TV-guide market) With the amount of live, streaming programming on the Web these days, it seems like a no-brainer. With telcos playing in all areas of this market (IPTV, ISP and mobile), one lingering question is exactly what’s the service provider partnership play in this area?
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Wal-Mart buys Vudu; enters OTT delivery fray?
Wal-Mart (NYSE:WMT) has agreed to acquire over-the-top (OTT) content provider Vudu, according to a New York Times report today. Terms of the acquisition weren’t released, but the 
companies reportedly informed Vudu’s Hollywood studios and TV manufacturers of the deal today. The acquisition could make Wal-Mart, already a leader in DVD sales, a formidable competitor in OTT service delivery as well.
Vudu started offering its service with a required standalone set-top box (STB) three years ago. But, following a difficult business case, it transitioned to embedding its software into Blu-Ray players, IPTV STBs and high-definition TVs from LG Electronics, Vizio and Mitsubishi, and more recently announced partners Samsung, Sanyo and Toshiba. The company has also sought partnerships with independent telcos looking for a cheaper alternative than IPTV and distinguished itself with a focus on HD content and expansion into applications and Web services. (more…)
Is Google fiber network a product — or a prod to carriers?
If Google’s announcement today that it plans to “enter the fiber business” or “take on ISPs” — as many news outlets hyperbolically reported — had a familiar ring to it, it should.
The search giant’s move today to announce plans to build a test high-speed fiber-to-the-home network is right in line with earlier efforts to build an experimental wifi network. That wireless move was accompanied by expressed interest — or threats, depending on how you look at it — to take the next step and purchase then-at-auction 700 Mhz spectrum to build its own wireless infrastructure, as well as loud debate about how such a network would, and should, be open to all types of content and services.
As it turned out, Google never did get into the wireless network business. Not a big surprise if you run a network — which is a tough, capital-intensive industry nothing like Google’s core advertising, software and media businesses. But there’s no doubt Google’s prodding on the network front (and to be fair, it’s development and release of the Android operating system too) helped to lead to today’s much more “open” and competitive wireless market, even if only indirectly.
Without Google’s championing of open mobile, it’s unlikely the mobile ecosystem would look like it does today.
Which leads us to today’s fiber-to-the-home announcement.
Frontier goes OTT as telcos say IPTV isn’t selling
Frontier Communications (NYSE:FTR) launched a new Web site and service, my fitv, over the weekend that will act as a single source for Web content including local content, videos, entertainment and news. Frontier is pitching the free over-the-top search engine with the tag line “search less, watch more.” (more…)
OTTCon: BluRay redefining OTT market
SAN JOSE, CALIF. – BluRay players could quickly take the place of gaming consoles as the largest conduit of over
-the-top Web services to the home. According to The Diffusion Group senior partner Colin Dixon, BluRay devices are growing in popularity, offering consumers either an alternative or supplement to traditional pay TV services. (more…)
State of the Union shows power of a-la-carte mobile TV
President Obama’s State of the Union address, which drew in 48 million total viewers, paints a compelling picture of the power of mobile TV for one-off live events.
Mobile TV viewing application MobiTV saw a 1,544% increase in minutes viewed on its news channels that aired the speech on Wednesday. The channels, ABC News Now, FOX News and MSNBC, also saw the minutes per viewer increase three-fold. MobiTV, which counts eight million mobile phones users in its subscriber base, sees a jump like this any time it airs a live event, especially one related to sports or politics.
Who’s the victim: TiVo, AT&T or Microsoft?
TiVo (NASDAQ:TIVO), no stranger to filing lawsuits over patent violations, had the tables turned on it when Mic
rosoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) announced it is suing the digital-video recording (DVR) pioneer. Microsoft filed suit to defend its largest customer AT&T (NYSE:T), who TiVo sued for infringing on its software. But, AT&T uses Microsoft Mediaroom, so Microsoft is really just defending its own business. Meanwhile TiVo says cablecos are stifling innovation by restricting use of their set-top boxes, but in the same breath, is asking its sometime friends, sometime foes, pay TV providers, to partner with them to offer its DVR service. (more…)